The Time of Inner Conflict
by Spring Zephyr
Summary: Ritsu hides the fact that he's dating Shou from his family. (Sequel to "The Time of Change")


**This was written as a sequel to "The Time of Change", but it should work as a standalone too! I would recommend reading "The Time of Change" anyway though, for some additional context (and because I happen to think that one is better).**

At six-thirty in the morning, Ritsu was not ready for these types of questions: "Hey, Ritsu. Who's 'Cutie Shou'?"

The boy being questioned nearly choked on his toothpaste.

"Ah, sorry... It's just that you received a message from someone named 'Cutie Shou' and I thought it might be important. I didn't mean to look at your phone."

For once, Ritsu wished his older brother paid no more attention to him than he did the cracks on the sidewalk. Like a normal older brother.

But maybe he'd forgotten all about Suzuki Shou by now. At any rate, he can't yell at Mob for snooping through his phone, not immediately after years of pretending not to care and almost wishing he would, but... ugh, damn. Ritsu resolved to blame everything on Shou as he wiped the spit off his chin.

Ritsu can almost see the sun and the moon in Mob's eyes when he asks, "That's the name of a girl, isn't it?"

He hadn't expected it, but maybe Mob had forgotten about Shou's existence.

Then again, his brother still believed getting a girlfriend is the penultimate middle school experience. Which Ritsu has sort of succeeded at recently, but, well...

"Uh..." is the best Ritsu can manage at the moment.

'That depends on what "Cutie Shou" has to say' _,_ he griped internally. He should have known better than to let Shou write his own contact information into his phone. On the other hand, wasn't it also his fault for not changing it? A little ball of sunny warmth blossomed in his chest every time he saw the term of endearment.

Sentiments were stupid. They looked so pretty in movies, but in real life Ritsu eventually felt guilty for his emotions sooner or later. Despite the silliness of it – even the fact that Ritsu himself hadn't been certain of his feelings at first – he liked that screen name.

"C-can I see that?"

'Please don't have let Shou send anything too embarrassing.'

If it were a selfie, Mob would've surely said something by now. That didn't rule out the possibility of a cheesy one liner or a hand-drawn love note, something that made him less identifiable but still sappy and romantic.

And, honestly, Shou's idea of romantic was awful.

Despite this and his initial uncertainty, Ritsu was fairly certain he liked Shou now. Maybe a little more than certain. The inexplicable glee he felt from seeing a simple "love you" or "hugs" made it hard to refuse the other boy made Ritsu feel childish, like an awkward third grader.

The light in Mob's eyes quickly spread to the rest of his face as he obliged. Half of Ritsu's stomach was currently twisting itself into decorative knots, but at least Mob was happy.

If not misguided.

And probably apt to be disappointed in the near future.

Recently, Ritsu had started wondering if he didn't just like Shou – maybe he just liked boys in general. In an 'I don't like girls at all' kind of way.

"Good luck, Ritsu," Mob cheered, turning on heel and somehow missing the "suffering from terminal illness" look on Ritsu's face. For some reason, he only managed to work up the nerve to look at his phone after the door clicks shut.

Ritsu breathed a sigh of relief at the thought of temporarily avoiding catastrophe.

Until he turned his head slightly and saw Dimple's all-knowing gaze out of the corner of his eye.

"Don't you dare say a word."

"My lips are sealed," Dimple replies, deadpan.

"You don't have lips," Ritsu growls back.

Mob popped his head back in the bathroom door, nearly scaring Ritsu into dropping both his phone and his toothbrush in the sink. "Just so you know, Ritsu, I'm here if you ever need to talk to someone."

"I-I don't need your help in offering girl advice."

His attempts to dissuade Mob were weak and he knew it. Probably didn't help that he choked up on the word "girl".

Dimple shot him a skeptical look from the behind Mob's head. Apparently, Ritsu's attempts to discourage him with glaring and mental threats weren't very effective, because he made an unwanted contribution of "Actually, I disagree. Mob, you should talk to your brother." before floating off.

Ritsu tried not to pout, that would be childish. But he didn't want to protest too adamantly either, because that would be obvious.

"Are you really going to listen to that guy?" he grumbled finally, turning his phone absent-mindedly in his hand. He still hadn't looked at whatever Shou had sent.

Mob tilted his head, clearly not understanding.

"Why not?"

"Because he's... _Dimple,_ " Ritsu sighed, for lack of a better explanation. Seriously, the guy had vied for world domination twice already, and that was merely the tip of the iceburg.

Trying to take over Mob's body was the least of his crimes, and that wasn't even touching on the amount of time he'd spent yammering about world domination since Ritsu had become able to see him.

"So?" Mob pressed. "Everyone deserves a second chance. And I meant what I said to you, Ritsu. As your older sibling, I want you to trust me, no matter what the problem."

"All right then," Ritsu replied, biting the inside of his cheek in shame for what he was about to say next. "I _do_ need some advice.About kissing."

Their conversation screeched to a halt in the same number of seconds it took for Mob's face to turn completely red – as red as Shou's hair – and was twice as funny to look at.

X

"I don't see what the big deal is," Shou muttered through a mouthful of sushi.

Ritsu wrinkled his nose in response, wondering how many more times he'd have to remind Shou he wasn't actually a hamster before he stopped trying to stuff his cheeks like that. It was disgusting. Sushi was supposed to be eaten with chopsticks and one piece at a time.

"I mean, I hate to admit it but... your brother... isn't such a bad guy..."

"It doesn't matter if he's a bad guy or – "

Shou swallowed, glancing up at Ritsu with a serious expression. Great, now he'd upset Shou too?

"You just wanna keep this a secret forever?"

"Preferably," Ritsu admitted. A second later, owing to a feeling of self-consciousness, he added with a mumble, "Unless you don't want to."

Regardless of what he said, he wanted Shou to say "no".

"You have a bad habit of contradicting yourself," Shou mused, leaning forward to rest his chin on the palm of his hand.

He wore a sly grin that boldly stated he _knew_ he was right, and Ritsu had known from the second they'd met it was probably a bad idea for him to get too used to that feeling.

"You have a habit of burning my house down."

"Wha – I only did that _once!_ It wasn't even real arson! And you're _still_ upset about that? For real?!"

Thus concluded the story of how Ritsu and Shou managed to get kicked out of the most affordable sushi buffet in Salt City.

They hung out for a while after wards, but never returned to that topic. It was easy for Ritsu to tell himself Shou was distracted by flinging leftover rice at pigeons – the waitress had been kind enough to let them shovel the rest of their platefuls into two paper bags – but harder to convince himself it was true. Later, he gave Shou a quick kiss on the cheek in front of his doorstep, an even quicker hug, and flushed while hoping nobody had seen. It took three tries to get it right, because both of them were invisible for the first two, on Ritsu's insistence. By the third, Ritsu was just discouraged enough to permit Shou to stop bending the light surrounding them.

He all but ran away afterward, before Shou had a chance to reciprocate even though Ritsu could tell he wanted to. He also refused to look behind him, as if not seeing the hurt look that was certainly on Shou's face could help him pretend it had never been there.

Maybe Shou would get tired of dating someone like him, someone who was jumpy and nervous and had no confidence, soon.

X

"Brother," Ritsu started the next day.

"Yes?"

"Maybe I do have a problem."

"What is it, Ritsu?"

"I am too snarky for my own good."

"...Oh." The Christmas lights on Mob's face transitioned into a slightly perplexed look, punctuated by the way he sheepishly raised one hand to scratch his cheek. "I'm not sure I know how to help with that."

The conversation probably would've ended there, or at least moved on to Ritsu helping Mob with his homework, if the older brother hadn't added, "Actually, there was something I wanted to ask you about."

"Let me get my notes," Ritsu offered, still unconvinced this wasn't about math.

"No, no," Mob urged, suddenly very focused on fiddling with the hem of his button down shirt. Interesting. Whenever something was important enough to make even Mob nervous, Ritsu felt an innate curiosity. "That won't be necessary. Uh, it's... Your girlfriend, that 'Cutie Shou' – "

"Brother," Ritsu replied, already feeling the smile becoming forced and plastic on his face, "that's not – "

" – is just Shou, isn't it?"

Ritsu's mouth snapped shut. He opened it again, as if to say something – because all of a sudden this situation felt oddly dream-like, and there weren't any consequences to what he said in a dream, right? Even if he couldn't think of anything.

"What do you mean?" he asked at the same Dimple floated into view, looking for all the world like he'd never heard a dumber question asked in his afterlife.

His initial reaction was to grit his teeth and scowl, but Mob interrupted him before he grew too invested in blaming Dimple. "I... may have accidentally told Master Reigen," Mob muttered, looking embarrassed.

But not embarrassed of _him_.

A month ago, a week ago, Ritsu could not have imagined having this conversation with Mob without first wanting to crawl in a hole and die. Even then – since his brother could talk to ghosts – that wouldn't have been enough. His mouth still felt dry and his spine was rigid and straight after a sudden cold chill had overtaken it, but the earnest, awkward way Mob spoke was reassuring.

"At first I only told him I was happy to see you making friends with Shou, but then – the day I picked up your phone – I told Reigen about your girlfriend too."

Ritsu could almost imagine the rest of this story. Reigen asking Mob how many 'Shou's his brother knew of, if he'd even seen him talking to a girl recently. The answers to both questions were, respectively, only one and no, because Ritsu didn't feel comfortable around girls.

"Master Reigen asked if that seemed odd to me at all."

Mob's turned his eyes toward the ceiling, like he was deep in thought. For his brother's sake, Ritsu hoped so.

"And I said no, because there are probably tons of people named 'Shou' out there. Just because I know about one doesn't mean I know all of your friends."

Of course...

"Did Dimple tell you anything?" Ritsu asked, jerking his head in the direction of that floating green blob for emphasis. It was also his secret way of signaling for Dimple to run, because if he so much as uttered a word, Ritsu was going to oversee the exorcism himself.

"Why would Dimple say anything?" Mob replied, confused. "We're talking about you, aren't we?"

Dimple, conveniently, had made himself scarce in the instant Ritsu was focused on Mob. He must've gotten the message somehow. Lucky for him, he was probably innocent anyway.

With Dimple absent, the atmosphere in the room finally relaxed a little. Ritsu released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding in.

"Never mind."

That just left one thing –

"Anyway," Mob began, cutting him off before his thoughts had the chance to get out of hand again, "it's okay if you don't want to tell me. Reigen said I should be supportive, but – you're my younger brother. It doesn't matter if 'Cutie Shou' is a girl or a boy, because you're still Ritsu."

"Thanks, Mob."

"Maybe you're not even dating..."

"We are," Ritsu admitted hesitantly, watching Mob's head tilt in response. He chewed on his bottom lip absently, wondering how much more he should add to that. "I don't want to say anything more than that for now, sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Mob said.

X

"I'm sorry for being so pushy," Shou wrote over text the next day.

It left Ritsu feeling shocked. He knew there was probably a reason Shou hadn't messaged him recently, but he would've assumed it had something to do with his father or some other ESPers. Sneaking into a pet store after closing hours so he could stay up late petting hamsters would've seemed more plausible, even. (It was a testament to Shou's noble character that he hadn't already done so or worse, since he certainly had the ability to.)

Because Ritsu was such an old man about technology – only using it when he didn't have a choice – he hadn't even considered Shou's feelings might have something to do with it.

"Don't be sorry," Ritsu typed back.

Self-confidence was the first step.

And at the same time, he was going to stop begging Shou to make them invisible whenever they attempted to do something vaguely romantic in public. Shou was probably getting tired of being poked in the eye with a nose or jabbed in the spleen – Ritsu was.

 **If you're reading this, you probably made it to the end. If you have a few more minutes, I'd appreciate some feedback on the pacing, emotions, characterization, and so forth. This and the story preceding it are a bit different than how I usually write, which is why I'm interested in hearing everyone's opinions.**

 **Number of One Punch Man or Makai no Ossan references in this story: Zero. I somehow forgot to make any.**


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